Political Hacks at the IRS Leaked Confidential Information on Conservatives to the Liberal Media Group ProPublica

RUSH: Get this. I've just been sent a note here by a trusted source. The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups took that information from the applications for tax-exempt status, from all those groups, and they sent that information, which is confidential, they sent information on 31 conservative groups to a liberal nonprofit journalism organization called ProPublica. We know this because ProPublica told everybody today that the IRS sent them the information on these conservative groups.

So, folks, this was not just -- how to explain this, what we're up against here. I don't care what bureaucracies it is, I don't care what department, what cabinet level department, in this case the IRS. It's populated by the same people who are in the think tanks, the same people in the media, the same people that make comments on these liberal websites. They're populated by the same people you read on the Daily Kos or the Democrat Underground or whatever. So it turns out that the division of the IRS that scrutinized tax-exempt status of conservative groups took that confidential information from their tax-exempt status application and sent it to a nonprofit journalism organization called ProPublica, so that ProPublica could use that information and slime these groups.

Now, the IRS isn't supposed to give anybody anything. Every bit of information on everybody's tax return, everybody's application for tax-exempt status is supposed to be closely held and private. It is not supposed to be shared. The president is not supposed to be able to call and get information from the IRS. If the president wants to know what the Koch brothers are making, how much they've earned, and what they paid in taxes, he cannot call the IRS and get the information. They are not legally allowed to tell him. In this instance the IRS and the people working there, who are political hacks, sent the information on 31 conservative groups to a liberal journalism organization, nonprofit, ProPublica.

There's one reason to do that: to help this nonprofit journalism organization gear up to write demeaning, critical, defaming, whatever, stories about these groups. We are the enemy, folks. They are not on our side. They are not independent. The people at these government agencies have been stocked with leftists for decades now, and they're all activists. They're in government precisely to have access to that power. They are in government to be able to use that power. They play for keeps. There's no such thing as a level playing field. Now, you might say, who's ProPublica?

Let me take a break, get that out of the way. I'll come back and tell you a little bit about who they are.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: ProPublica is a group founded by a guy named Herb Sandler and his wife, Marion. They are a Democrat front. They are partially funded by George Soros. Herbert and Marion Sandler are people who were designated by TIME Magazine as people who helped cause the financial crisis in 2008. They have put their ill-gotten billions into a propaganda machine for the Democrat Party. "Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how dozens of social-welfare nonprofits..."

Now, listen to this: "Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how dozens of social-welfare nonprofits had misled the IRS about their political activity on their applications and tax returns." Every group that ProPublica mentioned was a Republican or conservative group. Now, it has been learned that the IRS, the division that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups, sent the information that they had gleaned on 31 conservative groups to this ProPublica group.

The ProPublica group then turned around and used that information in the 2012 campaign to demean and impugn these conservative organizations. There's a symbiotic relationship between the hacks and the IRS. (I'm probably targeting myself for an audit right now.) But the people in the IRS, simpatico liberals, gave this information on the Republican conservative nonprofits to ProPublica, which then turned around and devoted months of attacks. They're a "journalism" group.

They funded and they supplied reports to journalists, who then wrote stories on how these Republican conservative nonprofits had misled the IRS and lied about their tax-exempt status. Now it's all making sense. Now it has all come out. Now we know what this is about. It wasn't just the IRS harassing these tax-exempt groups. The IRS was collecting information for a sympathetic media organization, which then supplied it to the mainstream media.

Much like Media Matters supplies information on this program to the mainstream media, ProPublica got information from the IRS about tax-exempt and Republican-conservative nonprofits. They gave that to the media, and the media then wrote stories about how these groups did not qualify, or they had lied, or they had misled the IRS, and therefore illegally obtained their tax-exempt status. They were portrayed as illegal conservative think tanks, nonprofits, what have you.

Now, ProPublica made this revelation today. They're the ones. They are the sources for what we know now. ProPublica is pretending to be on the side of the angels by reporting this now. What ProPublica is doing is getting out in front of it. Rather than waiting for this to be discovered, they are attempting to be on the side of the angels by reporting on the IRS. They are pretending to be on the side of the angels by reporting what the IRS did in giving them this information now.

But they did not blow the whistle on the IRS back when they were given the information. When the IRS was furnishing them the information they had collected on these conservative groups, ProPublica was using that and supplying journalists. Just like Media Matters does. Media Matters listens to this show and other shows, takes what they want out of it out of context, then sends notes out to the media. The media then runs stories based on what Media Matters says, not what's actually said on this program, for example.

You know how that works.

ProPublica was doing the same thing as Media Matters does, except they were using information given to them by that agency, that division of the IRS. So there was a concerted effort to undermine conservative, tax-exempt nonprofits in the 2012 campaign. ProPublica is funded by exactly the same people who fund Media Matters: George Soros, and Herb and Marion Sandler. "One of the applications the IRS released to ProPublica was from Crossroads GPS, the largest social-welfare nonprofit involved in the 2012 election."

So you have Crossroads GPS applying for nonprofit status. They had to furnish all of that information that you've now seen that the IRS required, all the donor information, all the private stuff that was irrelevant to whether or not they were a tax exempt. The IRS was demanding all that data, and whoever it was in this division of the IRS was turning around and shoveling that information to ProPublica. There were 31 such conservative groups that were targeted. One of them was Crossroads GPS.

Now, if you wonder who did this, you might have heard the names Herb and Marion Sandler. They made all of their money in the subprime mortgage scandal. They are a couple who concocted and created the subprime mortgage with what's called a "back-end payoff" of some kind. They're two of the people who made out like bandits in the subprime mortgage scandal by packaging these things and selling them to unaware buyers. But, I mean, they're liberal hacks.

They're liberal donors, fundraisers, pure hacks -- and they had people in the IRS giving them private information on 31 conservative groups who had applied for tax-exempt status. It's the same kind of operation as Media Matters for America. So that's what this IRS thing was all about. Again, the IRS scandal was not just about the IRS being abusive. It was not about them being overly zealous. It was not about them being curious and prying.

They were collecting information and funneling it to a left-wing nonprofit "journalism" group called ProPublica. Now, remember when Harry Reid, out of the blue, said he had a friend who told him that Mitt Romney hadn't paid his taxes? The media said, "Well, who is it?" Reid responded, "Well, I'm not telling you that, but he didn't pay his taxes. It's up to Romney to prove that he did." Of course the media ran with that. The media went to Romney and said, "Look, Harry Reid says you haven't paid your taxes!"

Romney said, "I'm not gonna dignify that. That's absolutely crazy." But all it took was Harry Reid claiming that Mitt Romney had not paid his taxes, and the media accepting that as something Romney had to deny. Romney had to prove that it wasn't true! Harry Reid didn't have to prove that it was. Harry Reid made the allegation. Nobody demanded he prove it. They went to Romney and demanded that he prove he had paid his taxes.

So where did Harry Reid get his information on Mitt Romney? It could well be that it comes from all of this. Who knows? Herb and Marion Sandler are the cofounders of Golden West Financial Corp. S&L. They sold the company to Wachovia in May for $24 billion. In 2004, Herb and Marion Sandler gave $13 million to anti-Bush 527s. So now the question that people have been asking since the IRS scandal surfaced is, "Why would the IRS want all of this information?"

Everybody just says, "Well, it's a government agency, and they're just pigs! I mean, they just want to bug people. It's the government and they harass people." It turns out that the IRS wanted all of this data on the 31 conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status to give it to somebody. What good would the information be to the IRS just sitting there? Okay, the IRS collects all this information on all these people applying for tax-exempt status. What good does it do them just sitting there?

It's worthless to them, unless they give it to somebody. How did we hear about Romney's offshore bank accounts? How did we hear how much the Kochs pay in taxes? We heard about all of this. We learned all kinds of what is supposed to be private and secure information. Where'd that information come from? Well, now we know the IRS was giving information, tax-exempt organization data to this ProPublica group.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: More details on this and a companion story. Again, "The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica." ProPublica made the revelation.

ProPublica is trying to get out in front of this, make themselves look like angels. ProPublica knows where this is headed. They want to be the ones to say the IRS improperly gave us stuff. They were entirely happy to take it, they loved getting it, and they used it. Now that it has surface ProPublica wants everybody to think, "Oh, my God, look what happened to us. They gave us illegal stuff!"

According to ProPublica, quote, "The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year," as though, "Oh, my God, can you believe what they did?" When in fact they were in bed together.

"In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved -- meaning they were not supposed to be made public."

ProPublica is saying, "Oh, my gosh, they sent us stuff that they shouldn'ta sent us. This stuff that hadn't been approved yet. It shouldn't have been public. Oh, my God, oh, my God." And they went ahead and they used it anyway. They said: "We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy." Even though it was illegal for us to have it, we thought it was newsworthy, so we redacted all the important stuff but still put it out there, although they're not saying this, to defame these groups.

"Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how dozens of social-welfare nonprofits had misled the IRS about their political activity." So what ProPublica is saying here is that they were on the side of the angels. They were monitoring these conservative groups, and what they did was show how dozens of these conservative social welfare nonprofits lied to the IRS about their political activity on their applications, tax returns. So the ProPublica group is saying, "We're on the side of the angels. We exposed these lying conservative skunks."

"In 2012, nonprofits that didn’t have to report their donors poured an unprecedented $322 million into the election. Much of that money -- 84 percent -- came from conservative groups." So ProPublica is saying that 84% of this money was illegal and we're the ones that blew the whistle on it, and they're telling us today that they knew this because the IRS gave 'em the information. Which is illegal. So now they're saying, "Look what happened to us."

"ProPublica, based in New York City, was launched in 2007 with the financial backing of the Sandler Foundation and other foundations. The Sandler Foundation was founded with support from former World Savings Bank CEO Herb Sandler and his late wife, Marion Sandler. The Sandlers established themselves as top donors to progressive movement causes and institutions, including the Center for American Progress, founded by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, and the Center for Responsible Lending. In 2011, it was reported that ProPublica had amassed 2,600 non-Sandler donors that contributed more than $5 million of the group’s $10 million budget."

So now we know why the IRS was collecting the information. They were collecting it to pass it on to ProPublica, a left-wing journalism nonprofit. And ProPublica was then telling the world with reports to journalists how fraudulent these conservative nonprofits were and how much of the money that was being raised for the 2012 election was illegal. Amazing.

Here's another story that, if true, is pretty damning. "National Organization for Marriage Renews Demand That IRS Come Clean On Stolen and Leaked Tax Return." This story is a great example of how the IRS can use information illegally stolen from tax-exempt applications to help Obama's friends and punish his enemies. Now, the National Organization for Marriage is a nonprofit political organization founded to fight the legalization of same-sex marriage. It was formed in 2007 to help pass Proposition 8, which prohibited same-sex marriage in California.

On the other hand, the Human Rights Campaign is a militant gay group that has been leading the charge for same-sex marriage in California and all over the country. The National Organization for Marriage has been claiming for some time that the IRS stole its confidential Form 990 tax return and leaked it to the Human Rights Campaign, in violation of federal law.

The National Organization for Marriage says: "At the time of the theft, the HRC had long-sought to know the identity of [our] major donors and its chief executive was a co-chair of President Obama’s reelection campaign. The Form 990 that was leaked to the HRC contained the identity of numerous major donors to the organization."

The Huffing and Puffington Post published the National Organization for Marriage's Form 990 Schedule B from 2008 that contained the identity of dozens of donors in March of 2012. And you know what happened. Those donors became major targets of the mainstream media. And all of that was illegal, because the IRS made that information that was confidential to the National Organization for Marriage available to the Human Rights Campaign. We were just told by the Washington Post that March 2012 marked the high-water mark of the IRS activities along these lines. The Human Rights Campaign claimed the tax return was provided by a "whistleblower."

And as the National Organization for Marriage points out, "For months previous to the publication, the Human Rights Campaign had been demanding that National Organization for Marriage publicly release this confidential information even though federal law protects the identity of contributors to nonprofit groups." So the gay group that was promoting gay marriage was demanding to know who the donors were. The National Organization for Marriage were saying, "No, we don't have to tell you." So the IRS released them the information. That's the claim, and many of the donors that gave money to the effort in California, Proposition 8, ended up the targets of hit pieces and other things in the Drive-By Media. And the National Organization for Marriage is claiming that the IRS illegally provided information on its tax return to the Human Rights Campaign.

So look at what we've got here. We've got this allegation from the National Organization for Marriage. We have ProPublica admitting today that the IRS gave them information on 31 conservative nonprofit groups so that those groups could be targeted by mainstream media as illegally constituted or what have you, undeserving of their tax-exempt status, and the IRS providing information to the Human Rights Campaign about their opponents in the same-sex marriage fight in California. Will the Justice Department seize Huffing and Puffington Post records to find out who leaked IRS information?

Ah, come on. What's happening now is the IRS is denying what the National Organization for Marriage is alleging. I don't quite know how to characterize this. Folks, this is Soviet-style banana republic stuff. I mean, it's a combination of Soviet-style statism, thuggism, and banana republic. I mean, the law doesn't matter. All that matters is advancing the cause and defeating enemies of the cause no matter what you have to do and, you know, take what happens as a result. The law says you can't share information, we'll find a way to do it. And we'll make 'em prove that we did it and then we'll deny it all the way.

This is who we're up against. I mean, this is the kind of thing that's at stake here. And low-information voters, they look at all these government agencies as clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. They're all nonpartisan. They wouldn't do anything to hurt anybody. They wouldn't release private information. This is a tough sell to the low-information crowd, all this stuff, complicated to understand. But in the meantime, folks, whatever information that can be used against conservatives, however illegal to share, will be shared. This was all about the reelection of Obama, all of this was. And a reaction to 2010. The 2010 midterms just sent 'em into a tailspin loop, scared the heck out of 'em, about what was ahead of 'em for 2012.